Nepotism has reduced Bollywood into a shit-fest of mediocrity. Let’s intervene.

This is long read, but unlike B-town flicks, has a moral at the end.

PlainTalkin
Jul 24, 2017 · 9 min read
Are you a bit out of the loop on all this? Quickly read this BuzzFeed article.

You must have heard of the nepotism joke at this years IIFA awards. The joke sucked, but the sequence of events that followed were a laugh-riot.

Question: How deranged do you have to be, to even joke about nepotism? Answer: Not very, just your average I’m-a-fucking-bollywood-god level.

It’s perfectly understandable how those 3 Idiots thought it was cool to crack that joke, on stage, and then jump around in glee. Bollywood, after all, is one big celebration of patriarchy, sexism and favouritism. So why not nepotism?

Because nepotism is just, Not Cool.

It’s one of those inherently wrong things — like slavery, or incest, or the caste-system. You don’t try to normalize nepotism. And the sooner this bunch of privilege-munchers realize that, the sooner we can start fixing this huge problem that’s dragging down Indian cinema.

Sure, star-kids must work to earn their stardom. But favouritism and nepotism ensure the less talented, more connected, have unlimited easy access . And slowly, the entire industry turns into a closed gene pool. Not an ideal situation by any standards. But then Bollywood never claimed it had any, or did it?

How exactly does nepotism negate merit?

Let me illustrate this with an analogy that strikes a chord…

You employ a person to drive your car. If he crashes or even scratches the car, what happens? He’s bloody well fired. Instantly. You then hire another promising driver who’s reliable and has a knack for driving. That’s how you make sure the car stays in good, safe hands. But, if your son does the same, is he fired? No, he keeps driving no matter how often he fucks up the cars. That is, until he runs over someone, or a few people, asleep on the footpath perhaps.

Saif Ali Khan must be well aware, had he been a driver and not a chota Nawab, his licence (to act) would have been confiscated a few decades ago.

A letter that will live on in infamy.

In the passive-aggressive 1000 word humblebrag linked above, Saif compares star-kids to “grand national winner” race-horses that are bred by mating two “derby winners”. On its own, this statement is enough to make you go — Bro, are the horses on Ketamine, or are you? He then completely abandons his quality filter and chucks in this barb…

So basically, a middle-aged blue-blooded superstar-nawab thinks it’s alright to randomly throw shade at a twenty-something ‘girl from Elle’?

He then goes on to compare a pure art form like cinema with the crass business of politics. Let’s not even get into politics, but how does one explain to shit-for-brains that artistic genius is not inherited. It does not flow from parent to child like physical size or brute athleticism does. Actors cannot be bred like prize cows or race horses. Hell, even looks and swag don’t always pass on, just compare mummy-daddy with beta.


Are actors bred,or just born?

The ‘actor-gene’ — if we can call it that — is a rare one.

It needs a potent cocktail of characteristics to be present in a single person: innate confidence, intelligence, charisma, perceptiveness, curiosity, exuberant energy, fertile imagination, a knack for mimicry and so on.

One might argue that direction, production can be taught —but only to an extent. However, with acting, you either have it in you, or you don’t. Drama schools can turn actors into good actors, but ‘acting classes’ can’t turn ordinary people into actors — regardless of how much they’re primed.

Repeatedly indulging unexceptional individuals because of the pull of their family name has dumbed-down Bollywood productions to an infantile level. Oscars, Golden Globes, Cannes etc. simply don’t nominate Bollywood anymore.

Varun Dhawan & Saif try their best to spear KJo with a giant spiky monstrosity.

No matter how much these guys pat themselves on the back, build an entire ecosystem of writers and critics who fluff up their B-grade productions , lavish themselves with meaningless filmi award after award — the sobering scientific fact remains that cinematic talent is simply not a gene that is passed on. And shit covered in perfume, is still shit. That’ll stink.

People have been too kind for too long. But now that Bollywood has thrown-up all over itself, its time for an intervention — for a dose of cold hard reality.

Bollywood doesn’t rock. Right now, Bollywood is a Sucks. It is as Sucks as Sucks can be. It is an actual clusterfuck of mediocre nepotistes, (yes, that’s a play on them considering themselves ‘artistes’).

It is a masterclass on how to make-do with severely lowered expectations. If Bollywood was a movie on IMDB, it would have a below-5 rating; and be a rip-off of some other movie.

Like it or not, Bollywood is the laughing stock of the international film fraternity. Well into the 21st century, our films remain overblown musicals with predictable plot-lines and illogical scripts that facilitate poor dialogue by stars who can’t act. Humour is mostly cringe-worthy.

But most worryingly, Bollywood is the beacon of unabashed sexism in an otherwise progressive world. Hypocrisy is rife: pelvic thrusts of every shape and form are totally cool, but kissing is still not okay!

Indian divas are invited to flaunt their stuff at Cannes other festivals only because they’re hired by brands to sell beauty-products to our ever-increasing cosmetics market—not because anybody actually cares about Indian cinema.

Now this is why all this is so distressing for a movie buff.

Bollywood wasn’t always this bad. The late 70’s & 80's saw a number fresh faces enter the scene, and some intelligent, critically acclaimed movies were made.

The turn of the century too saw a brief glimpse of what might have been. Monsoon Wedding, for example, was an absolute masterpiece. With no heroes or heroines, it made $30 mil. on a budget of little more than $1 mil. There were many other respectable, realistic movies with varying amounts of financial success — Earth, Lagaan, Swades, Maqbool, Black Friday to name a few. Hell, even Being Cyrus!

Going back to the start — this is how Kangana Ranaut set the cat amongst the pigeons.

But then came along this generation of frat-kids — KJo, Kareena, Saif, Salman v2.0, Bachchan Jr., Hrithik, Ranbir & Co. — who’ve slowly closed ranks and turned B-town into a snooty private club. And other than semi-caucasians and beauty-queens, outsiders can only enter as guests of members.

Nepotism might very well exist in every industry in every country, but while its severity might be like, say, freckles in one place, or acne in another, in India, nepotism is like chicken-fucking-pox! And it’s scarring our collective psyche in ways which we can’t even comprehend.

It’s so bad that there is actually an entire Wikipedia section called List of Hindi film clans, that details no less than 86 families and their entire khandaans. Although, in reality, its just a dozen or so mega-clans who run an industry that caters to perhaps a billion people.

Tinseltown hierarchy is the perfect reflection of India’s proud culture of casteism — built on the foundational ethos of hardline nepotism — that has now resulted in a dystopian society where 1% control 60% of the wealth, while the bottom 4/5th, the unwashed masses, survive on just 10%.

Why is the Indian public obsessed with superstars?

“It’s supply and demand. People want it, media serves it. So we’re all part of the same vicious circle in that sense.”

India was ruled by literally hundreds of rajahs and nawabs right until the British-raj took over in the 1800’s. At independence, a third of the country still remained under monarchies. Pataudi was one such princely state.

A yearning for royalty, and pale skin, is hardwired into our system; the gods of the silver screen are our present-day aristocracy.

The majority of Indians are still dirt poor and fairly uneducated. Their lives are so miserably wanting in material and ideological wealth, that beyond the vicarious pleasures derived from a glimpse into the lives of the rich — the mere act of going to a movie-hall and experiencing the stars — up close and personal on the big screen — adds volumes to their confidence & street-cred.

Power is equally addictive as it is seductive. The masses are wholly seduced by the power wielded by the reel-life monarchs, who are in turn addicted to their star power and its continuation: establishing dynasty.

Like all addictions, this is an unhealthy state of affairs. The powers-that-be need to exercise self-restraint and allow a greater representation of ‘outsiders’, which in turn can help wean the public off their dependence on big names.

Selling audiences dreams of the good life, that have zero chance of being realized in the real world, is not ‘offering hope’ — it is screwing with people’s heads. The ethical aspect is further devalued when you hog the limelight and deny opportunities to the many thousands of talented nobodies, fighting for a place in the entertainment industry.

Saif, to FirstPost, 18th July, 2017.

Newsflash: You don’t HAVE to become an actor. Or groom your children to. Go try other things. Try getting into business or politics, perhaps start your own NGO, or if not, just live off mum/dad/sis/bro’s cash. By exploiting access and privilege you’re just perpetuating that vicious cycle of mediocrity and skewed opportunity.

Quit squabbling. We’re missing the big picture.

Cinema ought to be a reflection of society — particularly the flaws; a tool for social reform even. Movies are without comparison, the single largest influence in shaping the culture of a nation. And right now, that power is in the hands of a bunch of bottom-feeders, who continue to churn out garbage.

Indian society is crying out for someone to hold a mirror up to it and point out all the wrongs. Yet rather than take on the challenge, this generation of nepotistes choose to run the industry by embracing all the dysfunctional ways that dominate our land, and produce movies that exist only in La La Land.

This industry needs rebels and iconoclasts, those with talent, courage and conviction to create hard-hitting, multi-layered cinema based on realism. It doesn’t need squeamish mamma’s boys who toe the line set by businessmen financiers and right-wing outfits and churn out nonsensical, socially irrelevant movies that perpetuate mediocrity and idol-worship.

Netflix, Prime and social-media production houses are massively redefining the landscape. Online conversations now have the power to change opinions and cause revolutions. If another generation of talentless tinsel-shits are foisted upon us, it really will be intolerable. Time to wake up and smell the coffee, I’d say.

PlainTalkin

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This blog offers ideas, perspectives & factual analyses of pressing matters — with the general idea of bringing about a fairer, happier society for all possible